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Guangzhou Diary: Week 3 Written on October 21, 2008, by .

12th Oct

I’m feeling a little more sprightly, and feel I need a change of scene after being “stuck” fairly inactive at the hostel. I move hostels, to a small hotel 10 minutes walk from Xiaobei. I’ll probably have to move back to the Youth Hostel again, as prices rise during the GuangzhouFair, but for now it’s good being right in the city as opposed to the “wrong” side of the river with the 11:30 pm closing subway my only life-support.

Through the Douban group, I hear of another camera place out east in Tianhe district, Dongcheng 3G computer plaza, and I pay a visit, manage to track down that supply of Provia 400. Then I go back to Dashatou and pick myself up a cheap but sturdy tripod, reflector, cable release. I forgot to buy a light meter though. Will have to go back tomorrow, a trip I could do without making…

Crash out in the evening in my first single hotel room of the trip so far. I leave the air-con off. It had been a little too cold on occasion in the dorms I’m feeling better but suddenly exhausted from several days of trying to work through a flu-ish headcold.

13th Oct

Get my first real uninterrupted sleep in a while. Birthday treat to myself. Still choked up with the cold, but my forehead is dry. No fever ? Might just be the weather? Write up note for photocopying and giving to portrait subjects, then nip back across town to the Dashatou Market for a light meter, and I’m ready to go. As if”nipping”across town is possible in a city this size.

I get a taxi down to there ok, in the shops within 20 minutes, takes me another twenty to find a light meter, but then the rain comes on, proper tropical rain again, seemingly no taxis for the way back. End up walking, waiting in likely places, getting wetter, feet squeaking like rubber rats in my foam flip-flops, queueing for subway tickets from the machine but give up, there surely must be a taxi, run back upstairs, out of breath - must still be more ill than I thought and a lump of phlegm coalesces after a grunt or two. Nope, even traffic cops says not much chance of getting a cab, back down I go, tickets, tickets, just miss the next train, the flip-flops not squeaking so much, give them their due they do dry surprisingly quickly, but back out ten minutes later squeaking again, dodging from overhead balcony to the next, stopping for coconut ice, in and out of people’s way, buffeted by umbrellas, quick run to catch the last few seconds of the green man, flip-flops flapping, leaps and bounds, some kind of centrifugal force to keep them from accepting the fate gravity has in store for them, stuck behind an old man, back to the bit where my ice lolly broke three hours earlier, and finally, five minutes from the hotel, the heavens shift up a gear, and I duck in for some chicken rice (…and perhaps also chickened out of some duck rice ?)

It’s now 6pm. Day’s gone matey. Told you. Torrential rain and no umbrella keeps me in all evening. I crash out knackered early on then stay awake half the night.

14th Oct

My cold is more or less away. I look again at my note for giving out. Its shit. I need to rewrite it. takes me a while to get it as I want it. End up staying in hotel until afternoon. Head out later to pick up new shiny paper business cards, and explore for possible portrait locations. Decide not to do”locations”, it’ll all be environmental portraits but of specifically people doing business here longer term, people on resident visas. I also get my project explanation note printed out. Try to get an early night to rebalance my sleeping pattern. Buy some medicinal sleeping capsules. Bed at 12pm, but still cant sleep till 2am.

15th Oct

Sleeping pills, after they kick in, mean I sleep through all alarms set. Totally drowsy still at midday. Like drunk drowsy. I can barely think. Head fuzzy. My Chinese is awful. Double espresso needed. Walk to Starbucks at Gongyuanqian subway stop even though Nongjiangsuo subway stop is 15 minutes closer. I’m moving back to the hostel because the hotel near Xiaobei has bumped its prices up for the canton fair. The hostel has also bumped up its prices, but they were less to start with.

Finally get back across town and start shooting portraits for real on Provia 400, seems ok. Postcard idea seems to work, I try at Moka then speak to “visitor”Africans upstairs at Tianxiu, they’re worried about visas and police, and any way their image could be used against them. Understandable. It has to be residents really, others don’t seem to want photos taken at all, are some perhaps in the country illegaly ? Over in Dongfeng, I start asking around again, set up to take a portrait of a Nigerian couple who own a store, the prospect of a double portrait sounds good. Unfortunately I’m interrupted by a phone call before I’m fully set up, at the same time as security comes round doing what Chinese security does best, being assholes. Some guy picks up my cable release and asks “what’s this ?” and suddenly it doesn’t work, jammed closed. I get pretty annoyed by this and go looking for him, fruitlessly. I should’ve known. I end up annoying the security guard a little I think by my demands of “Chinese-style” compensation for the cost of replace the broken cable release. He says he doesn’t know the guy, he doesn’t work here, just a customer. It’s possible, although he wouldn’t have had time to pick it up if I hadn’t been being hassled by security at the time. Ok, I drop it, apologise for my ranting, and head off up the street. I first check out a small bar. It’s all Chinese inside. Doesn’t look like much going on. Apparently some Africans sometimes come down later. Then I head up Tongxin Lu to an African resturaunt.

The food is great. I get speaking to another guy sitting at the same table. He’s from Angola. I don’t even try to take photos, just drink beer instead, he really likes what I wrote in my note. We get into a pretty deep conversation. He taks about the idea of gaps. Reckons the presence of Africans at all in Guangzhou means there must be an opportunities here – Africans are good at find gaps. The gaps were in Thailand before, currently China, they can easily be somewhere else next. Although for him, he’s married a Chinese woman and has a kid with her. He tells me she feels more free whenever she visits Angola. He paints quite a rosy picture of his country, nominally “communist” government he says, but noting like China’s. There’s nothing special about China, and he bemoans Chinese business ethics, says many of the Africans deported were stuck here unable to afford a flight home, after their supplier gave them dodgy products which they couldn’t sell, then said basically tough shit, what u gonna do, hire a lawyer ? Also the officious nature of authority here drives most of the Africans crazy, he says, just as cops bust in to the restauraunt do random checks, there’s a bit of a fuss, some guy from through the back is summoned, produces a passport, things calm down. We walk to car, meet his Chinese wife, she’s not impressed, he’s late. We insists we go to meet his other Angolan friends who are in a Brazilian barbecue restaurant rest of Angolans in and I jump in the car. We’re a little late, they’re off somewhere else, next time he says and we swap details before I jump in a taxi back, a taxi ride that completely negates the saving I make from shifting back to the hostel.

16th Oct

Morning and afternoon spent on Wikipedia research. Read up on the consensed history of Liberia & Angola, stray into a few other countries too. If I’m going to meet these guys again I’ve got to get my basic facts on Africa together.

Angola is interesting, received 2 billion aid from China, no.1 supplier of China’s oil, nominally “communist” government that owns mineral assets but allows, encourages private enterprise, economy growing at 25-30 % a year, skyscrapers sprouting, mini-China ?

I’ll keep doing portraits, but perhaps focus on the Angolans too, if I can. It’d be a good way to combine the DSLR work, and if this guy is anything to go by, there seems neither much of a linguistic nor cultural barrier, although Portuguese is thir first language.

Head out later, back to Dashatou to buy another cable release. That evening, playing around with it myself, the same problem occurs. It jammed shut, or open. I can’t seem to get it working. I’m thinking it must be a product fault rather than that guy breaking it. Need to head back to Dashatou again…like I don’t have better things to do…

17th Oct

Told my cable release isn’t actually broken, just locked. They show me how to unlock it. Simple when you know how…I head straight to Xiaobei afterwards to take more portraits. I still have that Nigerian portrait that I definitely want to take there. The guard of the centre immediately gets on his walky-talky when I walk in with my tripod, I look at him, and he acts as if he saw nothing. Someone else arrives and follows me around. They’ve sent the supervisor apparently, he’s a real asshole on a power trip. Stands there looking stern, arms folded, I mirror his pose, the other more junior security guards behind him stifle laughs. He pretends he doesn’t hear them, and makes to stand even firmer. The Nigerian guy is busy talking to someone anyway. Will have to persuade them to go to a location outside. He seemed friendly though, so likely no problems. Get a business card of another African guy, an older guy, sitting, he suggests the other of the two Dongfeng trading centres, the security here are known among the Africans apparently for giving needless hassle.

More portraits over in the other mall. Security guy is friendly. I seem to misplace my reflector and new cable release though, check all over, must be somewhere.

Take a cab back down to Dashatou, again, luckily I now have a spare cable release but I need a new reflector. Shop is closed. Developing shop still open. Told it takes two days to develop E6 film. Maybe I’ll try Tianhe instead. Not now though, I’m going to take a leisurely stroll over the Pearl River to the south side…

18th Oct

An afternoon of consolidating ideas, I mean even 15 portraits, plus quotes, and then 10-15 good photos telling the story of the Angolans, or some other defined community, that should be enough. Enough for the MA, maybe not enough for the ultimate final project to my exact satisfaction, but at any rate the postcard idea isn’t necessarily working as I’d hoped. I write out a questionnaire instead to give them, I can select good quotes to put on the page opposite the portrait, along with business cards too of course…

I head to Tianhe district, stick film in for developing and scanning, E6 so takes a couple of days here too, what the hell, I’ve got little choice but to stick it in. Even if Tianhe is further away its right at a subway stop, not half hour walk like to Dashatou, and there’s a useful bus right back to Xiaobei. Buy another reflector.

Head back to Xiaobei to print out questonnaire, realise i’ve saved it on my USB drive as the wrong file type, non compatible word document. Can’t print it. Bollocks. Need to go back to the hostel and change it. Three hour return trip if I was to try.  This is why I need to be living closer. Take a portrait anyway, but it seems silly not being fully prepared there and then and always telling people I’ll need to go back with the form next day. Head back to subway Line 1, bane of my life, via the Taoci mansion, which I haven’t explored before. Not much that Tianxiu or the Dongfeng malls don’t have, and out of the way too, smaller than Tianxiu as well.

Decide to try and translate the form into French as well, using online translation…maybe I can get a French speaker to fine-tune it. This will hopefully open up possibilities with people from Congo and other French-speaking areas.

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